House of Lords votes to delay Rishi Sunak’s Rwanda treaty – as it happened

Here’s a summary the day’s major developments in UK politics.

• The House of Lords voted 214-171 to delay prime minister Rishi Sunak’s flagship UK-Rwanda immigration treaty over safety concerns, with the major setback likely to enrage right-wing Conservatives and put Sunak’s administration on the back foot again.

• Labour frontbencher Lord Vernon Coaker attacked Sunak for ‘lecturing’ the Lords, saying peers are doing their ‘proper constitutional role’ to analyse the Rwanda treaty.

• Liberal Democrat Lord Tim Razzell said the policy’s irony was that the deterrence intended by offshoring to ‘hell hole’ Rwanda is now stopping the scheme being viable.

• But home officer minister, Conservative Baron Andrew Sharpe, replied this interpretation was ‘offensive,’ as he unsuccessfully urged Lords to back to bill to ‘stop the boats as soon as possible.’

• After the vote, right-wing figures attacked the move. Nigel Farage weighed in, provocatively saying “We must sack all current members of the House of Lords.” It was unclear what constitutional mechanism he was referring to when claiming the lawmakers must be “sacked.

• Shadow education secretary Bridget Phillipson has described the government’s free childcare plan as being in “tatters,” after reports that staffing and IT problems were hampering the rollout.

• Sunak spoke to US president Joe Biden, discussing the military and humanitarian situations in Gaza, the Red Sea and Ukraine after US-UK airstrikes in recent weeks.

• The train drivers’ union Aslef will stand down its five days of additional strikes at LNER, after the state-owned operator withdrew plans to impose minimum service levels during next week’s industrial action.

• Scotland’s first minister Humza Yousaf has asked to speak to Labour leader Keir Starmer about Westminster-Holyrood relations if Labour is to form a government.

• Meanwhile, Starmer is keen to show he’s not up for ducking a fight from the Conservatives, in response to critics that he has run away from key battles so far, as his electoral strategy continues to evolve.

That’s all from me, Jem Bartholomew in London, and from the UK politics blog for today. Thanks for following the Guardian’s live coverage. See you next time.

After the UK’s upper lawmaking chamber voted 214-171 to delay the passing of a UK-Rwanda treaty to provide offshore immigration detention – to provide further time for scrutinising safety concerns – right-wing politicians were quick to attack the House of Lords.

The hard-right, anti-immigration Nigel Farage, an ever-present worry over the right-shoulder of Conservative leaders, said provocatively on X/Twitter: “We must sack all current members of the House of Lords. It is beyond parody.” It was unclear what constitutional mechanism he was referring to when claiming the lawmakers must be “sacked.”

Meanwhile, the UK Independence Party, which former-leader Farage left in 2018, said on X/Twitter: “ABOLISH THE HOUSE OF LORDS!”

The comments are a taste of what prime minister Rishi Sunak can expect from backbenchers and other right-wing campaigners, who are urging him to begin sending asylum seekers to Rwanda – and seem prepared to topple him as leader if he can’t.

More reaction to the government’s major setback on the Rwanda offshore immigration policy to come. But first, my colleagues Pippa Crerar and Patrick Butler have this great piece on Labour leader Keir Starmer’s evolving strategy – and willingness to fight. Read the full piece below.

In the coffee break after Keir Starmer’s speech on civil society on Monday, the mood among charity leaders was positive. Perhaps most of all they liked his defence of the National Trust and RNLI, beloved national charities that have, over the years, been demonised and demeaned by the right.

“It’s come to something when the Tories are at war with the National Trust,” the Labour leader had told them. “That’s what happens when politics of self-preservation prevail over commitment to service.”

His speech was also symbolic of a broader strategy from Starmer, who has been looking for opportunities to flip the narrative and show that he is not just ducking fights with the Tories to deny them electoral dividing lines, as some of his critics suggest.

This same strategy was on display earlier this month when he told reporters he was “up for the fight” of defending the “nanny state” as he announced plans to improve child health under a Labour government, including supervised toothbrushing in schools.

The House of Lords has voted 214-171 to delay prime minister Rishi Sunak’s flagship UK-Rwanda immigration treaty, with the major setback likely to enrage right-wing Conservatives and put Sunak’s administration on the back foot again.

Tonight’s votes centred on delay motions from Labour peer Lord Goldsmith, chairman of the chamber’s International Agreements Committee, which presented a report identifying ten sets of issues where “significant additional legal and practical steps are needed in order to implement the protections the treaty is designed to provide,” Goldsmith said.

Goldsmith added: “We are not saying the treaty should never be ratified but we are saying that Parliament should have the opportunity to scrutinise the treaty and its implementing measures in full before it makes a judgement about Rwanda is safe.”

The UK’s upper lawmaking chamber joins a list of other institutions in the British constitution who have thrown doubt on the viability and safety of No 10’s immigration plan – the Court of Appeal in April last year, then the Supreme Court in November.

Sunak has framed these setbacks in a quasi-presidential way, as an assault on its ability to pass laws and on the “will of the people” – despite Rwanda offshoring not being included in the 2019 Conservative manifesto – whereas opponents say the separation of powers is performing its constitutional role in sinking an unlawful policy.

View image in fullscreen

In this way, the treaty debate has also became a proxy for disagreement over the makeup of Britain’s unwritten constitution.

In a statement ahead of the vote, Labour frontbencher Lord Vernon Coaker said the chamber was doing its “proper constitutional role” to analyse the treaty further, attacking Sunak’s “lecturing.” In response, Home office minister Baron Andrew Sharpe said, “This begs the question, is Labour using the House of Lords to try to frustrate our plan to stop the boats?”

The Rwanda plan, initially launched by Boris Johnson as prime minister in April 2022, was struck down by the Supreme Court in November, declared unlawful over concerns the safety of people seeking asylum could not be guaranteed in Rwanda – particularly the risk of being returned to their country of origin.

Driven by critics on the right, Downing Street has tried to find a route around the ruling by ratifying a legally-binding treaty with Rwanda in parliament. The prime minister was able to dodge a rebellion from the Tory right earlier this month after last-minute crunch talks with 45 rebel MPs, sending the bill to the Lords with a majority of 44.

The policy has been also attacked by opposition parties, campaigners and human rights lawyers, for its impact on the lives of people seeking asylum, its expensiveness, and its risk for the UK to breach international obligations across a slew of human rights treaties. The government says it will help “stop the boats” across the English channel.

View image in fullscreen

Before peers debated the bill, Sunak ratcheted up the pressure. “Will the opposition in the appointed House of Lords try and frustrate the will of the people as expressed by the elected house?” he said in a press conference. “Or will they get on board and do the right thing? It’s as simple as that.”

Since Sunak became prime minister on 25 October 2022, following Liz Truss’s resignation, the Lords has defeated the government 125 times, according to a count from the Constitution Unit at University College London. Since the 2019 election, the government has been defeated on 374 votes – though significant setbacks such as tonight’s are rarer. (Tonight’s vote will not be included in that count as it is a motion to delay, not kick out, the bill.)

Sunak’s difficulty passing the cornerstone policy led Labour’s shadow home secretary, Yvette Cooper, to tell MPs last week: “He’s in office but not in power. No one agrees with him on his policy. And the real weakness is that he doesn’t even agree with it himself.”

“Voting is now open, clear the bar,” says the Lord Deputy Speaker, Baroness Garden.

And with that, peers go to cast their vote on whether to kick the prime minister’s landmark immigration policy into the long grass for further scrutiny…

View image in fullscreen

Lord Peter Goldsmith, Labour, weighs in again and picks up the constitutional jostling – between the government and the Lords, itself a continuation of fighting between the government and the courts – in saying the chamber has a right to vote for further scrutiny of the treaty.

Some peers “seem to be suggesting there was something improper in asking this house to do what I’m asking you to do tonight,” he says.

“The power – not to delay the treaty, not to block the treaty, because we can’t do that, that’s very clear – what we can do is pass a resolution, if we so agree, a resolution that it should not be ratified at the moment. That’s all I’ve asked.”

“It’s not right to say that that’s improper. “

Defnding the government’s plan in the House of Lords a moment ago was Baron Andrew Sharpe, of Epsom, a Conservative and the home office parliamentary under-secretary of state.

He said there are “very significant protections” that are legally binding to ensure Rwanda is safe and the motions to delay the treaty, being voted on this evening, are “unnecessary and misguided”.

“It is vital we stop the boats as soon as possible,” he went on.

Sharpe said the idea that Rwanda was chosen because it was a “hell hole” intended to be a “deterrent” is an “offensive” way to frame the proposal, referencing earlier comments by Lord Tim Razzell, Liberal Democrat.

“It was never about Rwanda, or any other partner country, being a ‘hell hole,’ as described by Lord Razzell, which I find quite offensive,” Sharpe said.

“By sending the clear message that if you try to come here illegally and have no right to stay here, you will be returned home or removed to a safe third country, can we break the business model of the trafficking and smuggling gangs.”

Moreover, Sharpe ended his speech with a dig at Labour: “This begs the question, is Labour using the House of Lords to try to frustrate our plan to stop the boats?”

In a moment of comedy, Sharpe sparked laughs in the upper chamber when, introducing his speech, the government minister said: “I recognise my time here is limited…”

As the House of Lords debate on the Rwanda treaty continues, Labour frontbencher Lord Vernon Coaker attacks prime minister Rishi Sunak for his approach to the upper chamber.

The debate is, of course, about the specifics of the treaty and what it means for the UK’s place in the world, and responsibilities under international agreements.

But bubbling under the surface, it has also led to clashes over the dynamics of Britain’s unwritten constitution and the balance of powers across the machinery of government.

“What we’ve seen today is not a House of Lords seeking to block, to act in an anti-democratic way, to actually do anything other than to do its job – which is to say to the government: where we believe that you should think again, where we believe that you might actually reflect on what you are doing,” Coaker said.

“That, as a revising chamber, as an advisory chamber, is absolutely what we should be doing. And nobody, least of all the prime minister, should hold press conferences, lecturing us about what our role is, when all we seek to do is to improve it, and to act in our proper constitutional role.”

Coaker referenced Sunak’s presser earlier this week urging the Lords to enact the “will of the people,” interpreted by some critics as a means of leaning on the upper lawmaking chamber.

Prime minister Rishi Sunak spoke with US president Joe Biden on Monday, discussing geopolitical, military and humanitarian issues in the Red Sea, Gaza and Ukraine.

“They talked about what’s going on in the Red Sea and the need for a continued international multilateral approach to disrupting and degrading Houthi capabilities,” White House spokesman John Kirby told Reuters.

They also discussed bringing down civilian casualties and increasing humanitarian assistance in Gaza, as well as Ukraine war funding.

It came after the UK and US have taken part in joint airstrikes in recent weeks from warplanes, ships and submarines, hitting Houthi targets in Yemen in retaliation for attacks on shipping traffic.

The statements in the upper chamber in this evening’s debate on the UK-Rwanda treaty have so far swayed towards concern and alarm at the government’s plan, suggesting the House of Lords might choose to delay the bill in the soon-to-come vote.

But there have been voices who said they are in favour of passing the treaty as it stands.

Conservative Lord Richard Balfe, in his statement, attracted headlines for questioning whether anywhere in Africa is “particularly safe” and said he could not think of “any country in Africa that I would wish to go and live in. But maybe it is safe. We don’t know.”

He added: “We need to realise that the whole international migration system... has got out of hand.

“If we’re going to cure it, we’ve got to do it as a European entity”, he said, adding “we’ve got to start off by rebuilding the countries of the Middle East that we smashed to pieces”. But he said he wanted to “support the Government in its attempts – which probably won’t work – to deal with this problem”.

Meanwhile, away from the House of Lords, Money Saving Expert and personal finances guru Martin Lewis has written urging the chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, to fix rules around child benefit which “unfairly” penalise some families with a single income or one dominant earner.

Lewis pointed out “the unfairness in the way child benefit gains start being withdrawn depending solely on one parent/guardian’s income hitting £50,000 (and wiped at £60,000).”

“The high-income child benefit charge unfairly penalises single-income families,” Lewis said, first reported by PA Media.

Lord Alex Carlile, a crossbencher, puts his argument simply in the Lords: “At the moment, we have not proved to the requisite standard – and I would suggest it’s beyond reasonable doubt – that Rwanda is a safe country for a law founded on this treaty.”

Lord David Alton, of Liverpool, a crossbencher, invokes Winston Churchill in defending the international human rights framework he warns passing the current treaty would threaten.

“It was Winston Churchill who promoted so much that we now take for granted including the European Convention on Human Rights. He rightly believed that such international architecture, based on the rule of law, democracy, human rights, security and economic recovery, represented our best hope for the future.

He also says, “The government rightly insists that the criminal mafia like gangs, who make their fortunes by preying on the desperation and misery of the vulnerable, must be hunted down and jailed.”

But, he goes on, “the question today is simply whether we can honestly say that Rwanda is a safe country”; and it’s also about “the separation of powers between judiciary and parliament”, as Sunak tries to get around the Supreme Court’s unlawful ruling.

He raises concerns about Rwanda’s human rights record, political oppression and treatment of LGBT people.

Lord Tim Razzell, Liberal Democrat, provokes chuckles in the upper chamber as he argues the government’s immigration policy is based on an irony:

“If we go back to the beginning, the whole reason for the proposals to send people to Rwanda was because it was going to be such a hell hole that nobody will would want to get on a boat if they thought they were going to go to Rwanda.

“But of course, the dilemma that the government now faces, is because of the Supreme Court [striking it down in November for being potentially unsafe], they have to demonstrate what a wonderful, safe place Rwanda is. And I do wonder whether that might just be a moment for them to reflect on the purpose of their policy.”

He added that the policy is “a classic case of two and two adding up to make five.”

We’re an hour away from the scheduled vote on the treaty. Rishi Sunak will be hoping more peers take their feet to argue in favour of the treaty as the minutes tick down.

Speaking a moment ago in the Lords was Labour’s Baroness Ruth Lister, who is emphasising, among other things, the potential impact on vulnerable children if the treaty is rushed into existence.

For children arriving int he UK whose ages are in dispute, she says, “there is a very real possibility that they will be removed to Rwanda, and if subsequently found to be under 18, sent back to the UK in a cruel human pass-the-parcel, which is likely to be very distressing for children who almost certainly have gone through considerable trauma.”

This, Lister points out, would be in breach of the UK’s obligations under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. She says it would be irresponsible to call for the ratification of the treaty now.

The House of Lords is currently debating the UK-Rwanda treaty, and the House of Commons is currently debating the second reading of the Offshore Petroleum Licensing Bill. Here are today’s headlines …

• Rishi Sunak’s UK-Rwanda treaty faces its first hurdle in the House of Lords, as they debate a motion that suggests it should be delayed after a committee report. In just over an hour’s debate so far, all but a couple of people have spoken in favour of postponing ratification.

• Shadow education secretary Bridget Phillipson has described the government’s free childcare plan as being in “tatters” after reports that staffing and IT problems were hampering the rollout. Sunak admitted there were “some practical issues”, but Downing Street said the government remained “confident” of delivering the policy. Children, families and wellbeing minister David Johnston said in parliament that no parents would miss out.

• Ofsted school inspections in England resume this week after a two-week pause to allow inspectors to undergo mental health awareness training.

• More than 40 Conservative MPs – including seven former cabinet ministers, some with responsibility for local authority funding – have threatened Sunak with a fresh rebellion after writing to demand more funding for councils in England to avoid deep cuts to services.

• Eleven Conservative MPs – including former ministers Suella Braverman and Robert Jenrick – are reported to have been called in by government’s chief whip Simon Hart to explain themselves over last week’s rebellion against the Rwanda bill.

• David Frost, the influential Conservative peer who has been criticised for claiming that rising global temperatures could be beneficial to the UK, is being appointed to a key parliamentary committee on the climate crisis.

• The train drivers’ union Aslef will stand down its five days of additional strikes at LNER after the state-owned operator withdrew plans to impose minimum service levels during next week’s industrial action. It would have been the first test of enforcing “minimum service levels”.

• Scotland’s first minister Humza Yousaf has written to Keir Starmer, inviting him to his official Edinburgh residence Bute House, to discuss how relations between the Scottish and UK governments might be improved in the event of Labour winning the next general election.

• DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson said his party has not yet reached an agreement with the government over post-Brexit trading arrangements.

That is it from me, Martin Belam, for today. I will be handing over to Jem Bartholomew.

22 Jan 202411.39 EST

Ben Quinn

David Frost, the influential Conservative peer who has been criticised for claiming that rising global temperatures could be beneficial to the UK, is being appointed to a key parliamentary committee on the climate crisis.

The appointment showed that “wacky, fringe views on climate” were no longer confined to the Tory party’s extremes, Labour said.

Frost, who was Boris Johnson’s Brexit negotiator, will be appointed at the end of the month to the House of Lords select committee on environment and climate change.

The former diplomat, who became a peer in 2020, is also a trustee of the Global Warming Policy Foundation, which opposes a number of net zero environmental policies and which is funded by wealthy Tory donors. He describes the foundation as an “educational charity in this area”.

Ed Miliband, the shadow secretary of state for climate change and net zero, said Frost’s appointment showed that Sunak was trying to keep those seeking to oust him onside.

Read more of Ben Quinn’s report here: Peer who praised rising temperatures appointed to climate crisis committee

Here is part of what Lord Goldsmith said in the House of Lords about the UK-Rwanda treaty as the debate there opened:

In total our report identifies at least 10 sets of issues where on the basis of the government’s evidence significant additional legal and practical steps are needed in order to implement the protections the treaty is designed to provide. The difficulty is that the government has already presented a bill to parliament asking it to make a judgment that Rwanda is safe now.

And yet on the home secretary’s own evidence it cannot be so. because the measures are not in place and have not been shown to be effective. The treaty is held up by the government as the justification for the measures in the bill and yet the treaty cannot at present provide a basis for parliament to judge that Rwanda is safe while so many aspects of the treaty remain unimplemented and untested.